Illtyd Harrington with his Freedom Pass

OBITUARY writing has been in decline for some time. When somebody famous dies these days, shift reporters will be sent to quickly find tributes to the departed, which will essentially mean a trawl of tweets rather than the collection of the hidden anecdotes which animate a life story.

This is why the CNJ published the tribute to Dame Maggie Smith that our late literary editor Illtyd Harrington wrote when they were both still alive. At the time, she was championing Downton Abbey and it was an occasion to write nice things about someone before they died rather than after.

How time flies, though. Tuesday was the ninth anniversary since we lost Illtyd, aged 84; it’s nine years since his coffin disappeared for cremation at his funeral to the strains of Josef Locke’s Blaze Away. One last smile after a lifetime of wit. How we wish he was still here, filing his mix of waspish but fair book reviews and comment pieces, while teasing us all for not knowing our history in his gruff Welsh tones.

Our sister paper in Westminster, where he was a councillor for several years, names its diary column after him, but there is no hope in matching his way with words.

Have no doubt, he was a hopeless name-dropper after a life shared in politics and theatre – his long-term partner Christopher Downes was a dresser in Soho theatreland and a close friend of Dame Maggie. When they all got together – along with some other thesps and dreaming politicos – it was a riot.

But for all of his outlandish stories about boisterous breakfasts and late-night tipples with the good and the bad, Illtyd was a down-to-earth friend who showed as much care and interest in the work experience students who came through the office doors as the editor.

You made him a cup of tea, he gave you a thousand stories in return. It’s not just the readers of our papers who benefited from Illtyd’s sense. Not his only political achievement but as deputy chair of the old GLC in the 1980s, he was responsible for the creation of the Freedom Pass on public transport. It has been cherished by pensioners ever since. Every attempt to remove it enraged him.

Like the winter fuel payment, it was a mark of a community which cares for its elderly and the spirit of a society where growing old should not be something that makes you poorer or be something to fear.

We’d never put words in his mouth, but he’d have written a rollicking account of the first Labour Party conference since Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister.

He was Labour through and through, but the kind of critical friend there seems to be little room for in the party now.